The Bitter Homeschooler's WishList

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List
by Deborah Markus, from Secular Homeschooling, Issue #1, Fall 2007
1 Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?
2 Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. S...ocializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.
3 Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.
4 Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.
5 If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.
6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.
7 We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.
8 Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.
9 Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons.
10 We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.
11 Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.
12 If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.
13 Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.
14 Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.
15 Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.
16 Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.
17 Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more.
18 If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.
19 Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.
20 Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.
21 Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.
22 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.
23 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.
24 Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.
25 Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!

Obey Gravity, It's the Law

Obey Gravity, It’s the Law

I received a phone call from my 6^th grader’s B&M English teacher this morning regarding the confiscation of a shoulder satchel. According to the middle school rules, the students are not allowed to carry around bags or backpacks, for the safety of the other children. The students are required to carry their binders with them to each class, stopping periodically throughout the day at their lockers to retrieve any material for another class, they are not allowed to carry material for one class to another however, so they have to make a mad dash to pick things up or put them away. This got me thinking about the other rules that make the compulsory education system here so irritating to me and my children.

B&M: No backpacks. No carriers of any sort. One binder that weighs up to ten pounds.

Home: Grocery bags, laundry bags, overnight bags, all required and standard equipment

B&M: 3 minutes between class, to go to their locker, go to the bathroom, get a drink.

Home: 15 minutes between subjects to play tag with the dogs, act out Great White Hunter scenario’s on flies, feed the rat in the cage or a pair up a sock that went missing two weeks ago. Plus go to the bathroom.

B&M: Obey gravity, it’s the law…you will drop your pencil/pen/binder/pants at the absolute wrong time.

Home: Obey gravity, it’s the law…if you drop an egg from four feet into the air, it will break and isn’t it great that we have tag-playing dogs who will clean up the mess?

B&M: 6 hall passes per semester, after that, you are responsible for the mess.

Home: One hallway that resembles an obstacle course more days than not, and if you pass it, you can swap laundry after you use the bathroom.

Don’t even get me started on the homework requirement. They are in a school setting for 7 hours a day, then are expected to complete 3 to 4 hours of homework a night. I understand that they (the teachers) have more than one student in their class, but I have more than one kid at home! His homework requirement kills my afternoon and evening time, when I could be doing other things like actually having a conversation with him or his brothers! Or cooking dinner, or reading a chapter in my book with a glass of wine.

Our children learn the rules of society from the moment they enter the world, we take them out into the world and we expect them to behave a certain way, they learn. And there are rules for everything, from dating to driving to picking your underwear out of your butt when you stand up at the restaurant. My children all attended public school for their elementary years and learned certain things, some positive, some not so positive. One thing I don’t want them learning is to suffer through a miserable situation if there is a better alternative to achieve their goals. My son will be leaving B&M this week, and beginning a clearer path with his education. I don’t want to teach him to just give up if the situation is bad, instead teach him that there are usually better means, that not everything in this life has to be a fight, and that confrontation isn’t always the solution to a problem.